


Spit Shine Your Black Clouds

by emoviolent



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels, Alternate Universe - No Band, Derogatory Language, Dimension Travel, F/M, Government Conspiracy, Implied/Referenced Terrorism, Language Barrier, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Other, Past Abuse, Prophetic Visions, Religious Conflict, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Trans Character, mentions of past relationships - Freeform, mentions of suicide and self harm
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-14
Updated: 2018-09-14
Packaged: 2019-07-12 06:37:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15989720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emoviolent/pseuds/emoviolent
Summary: An inter-dimensional anarchist, a disgruntled bartender and impending doom. That wasn't in the prophecy, but things are never written in stone.





	Spit Shine Your Black Clouds

**Author's Note:**

> The long awaited angel!Pete fic I wouldn't shut up about is here. Special thanks to das_verlorene_kind and loveinamaltshop for allowing me to ramble incoherently and indulging this fic. Fic title taken from the song by The Blood Brothers and chapter title taken from "Edit Your Hometown" by La Dispute. Comments appreciated! I hope you enjoy this.

As a bartender Patrick puts up with a lot of things most people would blanch at and quit their jobs over. When he saw the lukewarm corpse of a college freshman get carted off on a gurney towards the end of his first day, he quickly realized that his job meant more than just pouring beers and flipping burgers for underjoyed middle aged office workers. He already learned to expect the worst as a high school dropout living in the most crime infested part of downtown, but he wasn’t equipped for this. Patrick would have quit by now and taken up a job elsewhere, but there aren’t many places that would happily employ someone with an eleventh grade education and little money or experience to their name. He used to have goals, something about music and Broadway, but those are the equivalent of daydreams - he’ll never achieve them even if he tried. For now, he’ll have to settle for being a dignified enabler for the dramatic increase of drunk driving and alcohol poisoning. It’s a decent life.

 

Patrick likes to think that he copes with this pretty well and is hardworking anyway. He deals with scrubbing puke and shit off toilets, is always polite even when customers treat him without a lick of respect and doesn’t complain when he’s given a coworker’s shift last minute. He’s a good worker, but only because he knows how disposable he is and that if he were to say the wrong thing, he’d be out of a job. He’s a good person.

 

On a surface level, at the least. Patrick’s chances at being able to describe himself as “good” faded when he was 16. He never really stood a chance anyway; he wasn’t the best student and was either late to class, lost assignments or would fall asleep from disinterest. Teachers could glare all they wanted and mark him as late, tardy, absent, but they never really did or said much beyond that because when Patrick did his work, he did it pretty well. Patrick made sure to keep a streak of at least 70s in his studies and that proved enough since no one complained. He was never one for overachieving and did the bare minimum it took to not have to speak to his assigned counselor or mother about his grades. He is a decent student. He _was_ a decent student.

 

That didn’t matter to him. It never mattered that much to Patrick as long as he was able to attend band practices and write in his free time and mostly avoid trouble with his mom. He guesses he ruined his luck when his mom found him sneaking back upstairs one fateful night. His mother asked questions and slapped him when he wouldn’t say where he’d been and he was grounded for a week. No band rehearsals, no guitar, no hanging out after school. Patrick was fine with that, he could live with it and it didn’t mean anything to him, even if his mom was a bitch.

 

He wishes he took that incident as a warning, an omen of some sort leading to worse events that lead to Patrick finding himself on a friend’s doorstep at two o’clock in the morning with his belongings haphazardly stuffed into a duffel bag and tears still staining his face. It was the lowest moment of his life in his half-developed pubescent mind but he just sunk deeper and deeper into the pool of all things fucked up until Andy found him unconscious in a bathtub of pink-tinted water, both wrists slashed and his pulse almost nonexistent. The doctors told Patrick he was lucky he lived.

 

Sometimes, Patrick wishes he had died and bled to death in the bathroom, been declared dead in the hospital, or at least taken into psych ward and never heard from again. It would have made for a less repugnant life. He’d still have the reputation of being a “troubled but talented” young man but at least he’d never have to face them again and eventually be forgotten.

 

He hopes for the worst to happen. Nothing interesting happens at the tavern anymore. Drunken bar fights are only entertaining for so long before they become vexing and deserving of threats of calling the cops or throwing the brawling patrons out. Patrick longs for someone to kindly offer him a drink and wake up in strapped to a generator in a basement or to get beaten to a pulp and left to die in a bathroom stall, anything to save him from what his life has become.

 

Tuesdays only worsen his self deprecating mindset; the bar gets few customers, leaving it dismal and eerily quiet. Honestly, Patrick is unnerved by the near silence and never looks forward to working on a Tuesday.  Everyone avoids it like the plague and always has some excuse to get out of missing a few days of work. Patrick can’t afford any absences so he gets grunt work tacked onto his shift to make up for lost time. Part of him reckons that William only changed his shifts to include Tuesdays because Patrick knows how to soften his edges enough to seem like a normal respectable young man. He’s short, a bit chubby and has a sweet face so people aren’t threatened by him at first sight and unable to pick up on the turmoil bubbling under his innocuous surface. He also thinks that William hates him and thinks he is an idiot for his decisions. Patrick can’t argue with him on that - he’s very aware that he’s made mistakes and is batshit.

 

A record spins and hums from the dust-coated jukebox near the front door, something light and unrecognizable to Patrick in his hazy state of mind. He leans over the vinyl counter and drums his fingers against the hard surface as he scrolls through his phone and absentmindedly plays around on a few apps. Every few minutes his head lifts so he can look to the entrance to scope out any customers. Nobody comes in or even walks past the front door. Patrick’s eyes turn back to his phone. Rinse and repeat.

 

Two hours pass before someone finally enters the bar, a scantily clad woman in a tight dress and red stilettos that make her tower over Patrick. Patrick haplessly slips into his role as a jovial server and begins to greet the woman until she interrupts him with, “Where’s the bathroom?” Technically, he isn’t supposed to let people use the restrooms if they haven’t made any purchases but William isn’t in the building and Patrick isn’t completely an asshole. He patiently directs her to the bathroom and retreats back behind the counter, hoping she doesn’t make a mess. Through his peripheral vision, he can see the woman walk past him and the bell above the main entrance chimes as the door slams shut behind her.

 

Patrick sighs and looks back to his phone.

 

+

 

It isn’t a productive night. Patrick doesn’t know why he expects Tuesdays to ever promise anything good or interesting for him. Nate came in early to help man the bar and while Patrick finds his general good natured behavior to be charming, he isn’t in a mood to chat back and forth. If he didn’t respect him, he’d have snapped at him to fuck off already. Instead, Patrick forces smiles and nods at whatever joke or story Nate tells him. His company is appreciated even when it becomes aggravating and overstayed.

 

As Nate drones on about the events a party he attended, Patrick steals a quick glance at the analogue cat clock hanging on the brick wall behind him. Its rusting paws point at the numbers five and nine and after some quick math, Patrick realizes that it’s 9:25 pm. His face flushes in annoyance. Why anyone would want a clock in any shape but a circle or square eludes Patrick because these are harder to read than the typical model and tacky. Kitsch isn’t interesting or cute unless you’re a self identified quirky twenty something year old with too much free time and an abundance of money. That’s the kind of crowd that often ends up at the tavern on the average weekend and Patrick can’t _stand_ them. He isn’t sure if that is only out of jealousy because he knows he could easily blend in with them if things turned out differently or because two years of working the bar has made him develop a no-nonsense attitude.

 

The bell over the door rings and Patrick and Nate both look at each other with expecting faces that say “You handle it.” Before Patrick can make an excuse to not greet whoever entered, Nate grabs two beer mugs and disappears into the kitchen. Patrick rolls his eyes and groans but smooths the wrinkles from his apron and climbs over the counter.

 

Patrick puts on his best smile as he walks past the tables to the front door and says in the sweetest voice possible, “Hi, I’m Patrick, welcome!” As he approaches the person, he slowly makes out a black peacoat, newsboy cap and knee-high steel toed boots and nearly blanches when the person turns to him. Two dark eyes lined in black stare back at him, glistening with curiosity and calculation. Smile wavering, Patrick says, “H-How can I help you today?”

 

The person blinks and cocks their head to the side, as if thinking of a response. Patrick’s eyes scan the man’s face, taking in the strange symbol on his forehead and the scar on his upper lip. His knees buckle as he takes several cautious steps backwards, ready to call for Nate if this peculiar man dares to raise a finger or even look at him in a way that can be interpreted as malicious.

 

“Can I have a table, please?” The man’s speech is awkward, words sharp and stilted with a thick accent Patrick can’t seem to place. There isn’t any rancor behind his words despite his intimidating appearance and cold unfeeling eyes. The knot in Patrick’s stomach lessens but tremors still wrack his body as he leads the man to a booth and seats him with a laminated menu and pulls out his notepad.

 

The man reads over the menu carefully, humming inquisitively as he considers his options. His eyebrows furrow momentarily and Patrick almost runs to the kitchen to drag Nate from the sink so he can get rid of this weird man before he attacks him. Instead of pulling a gun on Patrick, the man asks in a small voice, “Can I have this?” and shows Patrick the menu, pointing at the word ‘SPRITE’. His face flushes as if he’s embarrassed of something and he turns his eyes to the chipped wooden surface of the table.

 

“Of course,” Patrick replies quickly. “I’ll be right back.” As Patrick prepares the man’s drink, he wonders if his eyes are tattooed that color or if he’s wearing contacts that cover the white of his eyes (hopefully he didn’t choose the latter. The idea of tattooed eyes seems painful and impractical), if he lives in the area and if the symbol on his forehead has significance. It’s a simple tattoo, a thin line stacked over a longer line with a slanted one beneath it towards the base, almost like a broken cross. He hopes it doesn’t have associations with anything illegal. Although the man seems harmless and more confused than potentially threatening, Patrick is wary as he brings the glass of soda to the booth and places it in front of the man.

 

Patrick hopes Nate realizes how much he hates him.

 

“Will that be all today?” Patrick asks. The man stares at the glass on the table with wide eyes, bright red lips parted in a silent gasp. He pokes it with a gloved finger, retracting his hand and hissing as if it burned him. “Sir?”

 

Blinking, the man hums an affirmative noise and pulls out his wallet, retrieving two crisp twenty dollar bills and placing them on the table. He brushes his fingers against the chilled glass, watching the beads of condensation run over his fingers and drip down his wrist. “Sir, a drink doesn’t cost that much,” Patrick says. Maybe the man doesn’t understand U.S. currency very well and doesn’t realize how much money he’s giving Patrick. “It’s only a dollar and fifty cents. I can create change for you if you’d like or -”

 

“No, this is fine,” the man replies. “It is a tip, yes? For good service?” Patrick begins to protest again but the man holds up a hand and shakes his head. “This is fine,” he repeats firmly. He slides the cash closer to Patrick and dips a finger into the glass, wiggling it around in the soda.

 

Patrick pales at the man’s change in behavior and takes the bills with trembling hands, closing them inside of his notepad and tucking it into his apron. “Alright,” he says shakily. “Just let me know if you need anything else tonight.”

 

The man nods and withdraws his finger from the glass and drags the water over the table, drawing a symbol similar to the one on his forehead. Patrick excuses himself.

  



End file.
